I was looking at my husband last night...in the dark...right after we had fallen into bed. For a moment, I felt a question forming on my lips, "How would you define marriage?" I wanted to ask. I heard the immediate heavy breathing that finds him so quickly this time of year, and I stopped myself from asking. It's not a time for those philosophical discussions; the ones I love so much and that can last into the wee hours of the morning. It was a wee hour of the morning. He had been working, and I had been hanging out with him...actually I should say I was hanging out "by" him. But I laid for a while pondering how I define marriage. I fell asleep too quickly to come up with a good definition. But when I woke up this morning...I kept thinking about it.
A definition of marriage, according to Bing, is: a legally recognized relationship, established by a civil or religious ceremony, between two people who intend to live together as sexual and domestic partners.
Marriage is a noun. It is not something you do, it is a state of being. I find it interesting that in the above definition, the word "intend" is used. Brilliant. It is a marriage as long as there is intent. As soon as a member of the couple no longer intends to be a sexual partner or to shack up domestically, the marriage is beginning to break. We intend to be sexual partners...at a point in time when our three kids are not sleeping soundly at the other end of our room, and we also intend to re-establish our relationship as domestic partners. So I guess we are in a marriage, by random online definition standards.
The word "married" does not further my understanding of what our relationship is. According to Bing, married is an adjective and it means, having a spouse. Great. So yes, I guess I have one of those. I am indeed a married woman.
My personal definition is still formulating, and my desire for more time to hash it out with my spouse is still there. I will ask him in the next few days what his definition of marriage is, and I'll report back about his response. Maybe by then I'll have a definition that more fully explains what I think about it too. For now, I'll just intend to be his partner.
Marriage is when two consenting adults decide that they want to live the rest of their lives together and do so in a civil or religious ceremony the marriage should be recognize by the state no matter if you are Black, White, Gay, Straight, Young, Old. A religious institution though can define a marriage however they choose. But the state should not be allowed to discriminate about against marriage by defining it as many states have done
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